thankfulness.

I guess it's in the whole spirit of Thanksgiving, but I've been thinking on this post for a while now... it just happens to work well because Thanksgiving is next week!

I am so incredibly thankful for how our lives are going.  Each day is a new adventure and each prayer is always answered.  It's amazing.

I guess this is going to be a list of sorts, but a detailed list.

A lot of people debate that there is no difference to a relationship whether you're married or not, especially since a lot of people live together before they're married anyway, and I counter that with, "well then why do people get married then?" :P Actually, I really believed this up until the moment I was married, I really didn't believe there was going to be any change in our relationship, except dealing with physically living with each other. Boy was I wrong.  I think being married is one of the most fulfilling feelings psychologically.  It's like before we were two people who loved each other, and now we're a unit, a family, legally.  It's amazing, and I'm so thankful to be in a loving family with Tal.  It's so amazing.  So yes, I believe there is definitely a difference to your relationship whether you're married or not.

The cool thing about getting married young, well married at any age I guess, is that there is a lot of growing and changing that you do together.  Both Tal and I didn't marry each other for who we used to be together, or for how we envisioned the other person to be in the future, we married each other for exactly who we were at the exact stage of life that we were at on our wedding day, both full well knowing that we'd be changing a whole lot more.  I think that's really important, to understand that your spouse and yourself are both going to continue changing throughout your whole marriage, and that your commitment to each other is stronger than those changes.  You roll with whatever change gets thrown your way.  I'm so thankful that Tal married me for me, and not for who he thought I'd become, or for who he fell in love with 5 years ago.  There's no stress in a relationship that allows for change on either side, as long as love and your commitment to each other remain in the center.

I'm  so thankful for all the changes that Tal has gone through this year.  He's become such an amazing man, and I'm so proud to be his wife.  I've joked about this before, but I really want a  button or a sweater that says, "I am the proud wife of an amazing husband."  He is so thoughtful and caring, and always looking out for me.  To try and show how much I think of Tal I'll tell you that the other day I was driving home alone from Aldergrove and trying to write a song about how thankful I was for him, and I couldn't sing it, because I couldn't stop crying.  He really is so amazing to me, and really, I am incredibly proud.

Our car! I'm thankful for our car!  Carlotta is really cute, but like we learned with the first apartment, the cute factor wears off really quickly.  The car was such a miracle to us, she was given to us for free at a time where we really needed her, and Tal was able to commute to and from work with her, and she really did help us get everything we needed to get done.  It was amazing though, even when things got bad, and she stalled at every intersection, both Tal and I had a sense of peace, that because we knew God had given us Carlotta, that she would continue working until a new car arrived.  We knew that we didn't have to stress about looking for a new one, because God was going to provide for us. 

If there's any lesson I've learned this year that I'm most thankful about, it's that God really will provide.  There's no use stressing, or worrying, if he takes care of the birds and the wildflowers, he most certainly will take care of us.  I still catch myself worrying, each time something comes up where I don't know where money/transportation/food is going to come from, but each time it's a little bit less, and Tal is so much stronger in this area, he always just says that he knows that God will provide for us, because he has in the past.  You can't say it's coincidence, it just isn't.  God has completely provided for our personal needs.  It's amazing.

I'm incredibly thankful for the family of friends that we've been able to be a part of.  Everyone from my close friends, to bible study friends, to church friends, they all just feel so much more like family to me.  I feel like my church has grown to be a lot stronger relationship-wise, and the same with a lot of my personal relationships.  I had a thought earlier this summer that if there ever was a situation where Tal and I needed a lot of help, and no provision from God had come, that he would provide for us through our "family." I have no doubt in my mind that our church family would help us in no matter what sort of situation we were stuck in.  We're so grateful for that.  It's so powerful to have a group of people that you know will stand by you.

I can only thank God for all of these things, but one that I find incredibly miraculous, is that every single time Tal and I think we're going to be tight for money for the next couple of weeks, EVERY TIME... we're given unexpected money within the next couple of days.  We've never gone without.  I think I'm going to get $500 and I get $1000, someone from church gives us a cheque, there's extra money from the government, there's just money, and we are so thankful.

I feel like God has been building us, so that no matter what life throws us, we won't be shaken because we know that God cares and provides for us.  No matter what.

Happy Thanksgiving.
Peace.

artisan bread in 5 minutes a day.

Yes, I scoffed.  No way can you make artisan bread in 5 minutes a  day... BUT I was proven wrong, and it's true, you can actually prepare artisan bread everyday in 5 minutes (30 minutes baking time).  So if I keep this up my kitchen will ALWAYS smell like fresh bread! Yum.

It's a really simple process with what I think is a lot of steps, but the basic premise is that it's a no knead dough that's quite wet which allows you to make a lot of dough at once and store it in your refrigerator for up to two weeks, and then just pull out a pound or so of dough whenever you want a small loaf. It's great for many reasons, no stale bread, no moldy bread, always having fresh bread, a perfect side to soups and stews, hearty for the winter, great for 2-3 sandwiches, delicious alone or with a slice of cheese, it's just perfect bread.  Also, the longer you wait to bake the dough, the stronger the dough will become, turning into a sour dough, and it's absolutely delicious.

The bread is a basic fresh boule which means... round... so it's a basic french round bread :)

So here's how you do it!

Basic French Boule (5 minutes a day artisan bread)

3 cups of lukewarm water (warm but not hot enough to kill the yeast)
1 1/2 Tbsp granulated yeast
1 1/2 Tbsp coarse sea salt
6 cups of white flour (because this bread only rises once, whole wheat flour tends to be too heavy, but if you want to substitute whole wheat for white, use both and use more white than whole wheat... :S)

1. First you add the salt and the yeast to the water in a large bowl, you don't need to worry too much about what the yeast is going, just dump it in and get the flour ready.

2. Next you level off 6 cups of flour and dump it into the water and stir.  Don't knead the dough, but stir until you have a really wet dough.

3. Cover loosely and allow the dough to rise at room temperature from 2-5 hours.  You want the dough to double in size.  Once that's done, it's best to put the dough in the fridge in a container with a lid that's popped open, you don't want the lid completely closed.  Wait at least three hours or overnight before you bake your first loaf.

4.  The dough can stay in the fridge for up to two weeks, and now it's the easy part.  Every time you want bread, just give yourself 5 minutes to get the dough ready and 30 minutes to bake it :) That means fresh bread with soup for dinner!

5.  When you're ready to make the bread, preheat the oven to 450*, sprinkle the dough with some flour and scoop out 1 pound or a bout a grapefruit sized amount of dough and put the rest of the dough in the fridge.  Shape the dough by dropping it back in forth between your hands until it loosely resembles a ball, use flour, it's going to be sticky!  Slowly begin to pull the dough gently from the sides and gathering it at the bottom, you want the top as round as possible, and the bottom will become flat while baking.  Then when you're ready to do the final shaping, put the dough onto a pizza peal or a cookie sheet that's been dusted with cornmeal (you don't want the bread to stick!)

6. Sprinkle some more flour on to the top of the unbaked loaf and run a serrated knife across the top creating whatever design you choose, a grid, three lines, a circle?  Anything.  All this does is allows the bread to grow while it's baking.

7.  Now you're ready to bake the bread!  The magic to this bread is  in two factors, not kneading it, and in steam baking.  When you're ready to put the bread into the oven, first put a broiler pan with about 1 cup of hot water on the shelf below where your cookie sheet or pizza stone will be going, then put in your bread and close the door quickly.

8.  ABSOLUTELY NO PEEKING FOR 30 MINUTES!  Letting the steam escape while the bread is baking will harm the process.  I promise in 30 minutes you will have a perfect loaf of bread..  It will get quite brown on top, but the insides will be beautiful and chewy!  The steam makes a really crusty crust with a soft center!

and that's that! Enjoy! Just pull off another piece of dough whenever you want another loaf!

Peace.

Check out NOISETRADE.COM.

Free music by interesting artists.  It's amazing.

Noisetrade

and if you want some of my music..

The Cold Feeling Inside Our Mouths

Peace.